


almost nothing needs to be said when you have eyes

by shaekspeares



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: American Sign Language, Canon Compliant, Deaf Character, First Kiss, I just really care about both of these characters and Grizz struck a chord in me ok, Introspection, M/M, Set up to 'Allie's rules', Short & Sweet, a lot of overly dramatic allusions to language as a token of love and self-expression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 18:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18922708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaekspeares/pseuds/shaekspeares
Summary: Grizz has been chasing Sam Eliot for longer than he can recall.[Recap of the events up to the kiss, from the long-winded perspective of the resident jock poet of West Ham.]





	almost nothing needs to be said when you have eyes

**Author's Note:**

> ugh i have to stop watching netflix originals but i saw suburban lord of the flies and i bit hard 
> 
> i adore sam and grizz and they're one of the few typical white-boy-in-a-netflix-show pairings that have uh personalities and development so yeah i... had to write this
> 
> this fic is about a lot of things; one of them is being closeted and gay in the suburbs, one of them is about the difficulty of using language to express thoughts, and one of them is about grizz being hesitantly in love with the same person since he was about twelve.

 

Grizz gets drunk as fuck at their fake little prom, because it’s prom, because he’s fun like that, always game to perform, and perform he does, wears tacky sunglasses and spins girls around, dances sort of purposefully badly with the boys, chugs drink after drink. “Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication”: that’s Lord Byron. He cannot seem to shut the fuck up, either, and this, amongst everything, is a problem.

 

Grizz knows he’s the talker of their group, though he’s really quieter than he gets credit for, but he’s the talker in the sensethat when he talks they listen. He’s the one who explains things, corrects mistakes, makes big sweeping statements the others consider almost indulgently, because they don’t really care or understand but they’re willing to listen anyways. He’s the smart one, officially; in their little group, there’s a tranquil hierarchy of supposed intellect, Jason and Clark filling the bottom rank, Luke respectably above them, and Grizz atop it all, maybe a little too smart, excusably so.

 

Clark will groan and punch his shoulder sometimes; “Dude, you think too much.”. Grizz thinks actually it’s just that most of their school thinks too little, but hey, big fish, small town, right. It’s not like hanging out solely with jocks is prime academic pickings. He loves his brothers, really, he does, but sometimes he feels like he’s _drowning_ , because they are content to talk about the same shit, day in, day out, and he’s their only source of conversation that’s not about sport, or sex, or parties, and it’s a thankless job. Stephen King, right: “If you liked being a teacher, there’s something wrong with you.” There is definitely something wrong with his friends.

 

Luke’s decent talk, but he’s content being smart mostly around his girlfriend. Helena, now, that’s someone actually intelligent. Jason and Clark’s girlfriends are both definitely smarter than they are, but that’s not a _high_ bar, and just because Gwen and co are slightly more strategic thinkers than their boyfriends does not make them particularly clever. They’re funhouse mirror reflections of the jocks, in their own way- so very unconcerned about the world at large. Helena is different- keenly intellectual, level-headed, _obviously_ headed for Ivy Leagues and personal fulfilment.

 

There are smart kids in their school, of course. Grizz isn’t saying he’s some kind of genius. Gorgie is some kind of tech whizz, and that Bean girl always gets top scores in the classes he shares with her, and of course there’s Cassandra- _was_ Cassandra, shit, it’s too fresh in his mind for him to go past tense. It’s just that there’s enough of a drought of intelligent kids that Grizz is the only one in his variety, the philosopher type, interested in everything, always thinking in half-remembered quotes he stole from people who were more adept at language than he is.

 

It’s more lonely than it is ego-boosting. He’s not naive; in places bigger than their small suburbs, there are plenty of people just like him but better, brains simulated rather than left to fester. He only wishes there were one or two of them within his reach.

 

The trappings of his social circle are regular topics of anguish in his late-night bouts of insomnia. Grizz lives comfortably, he knows- coasts through high school at about the perfect balance, top of the food chain and top of the class rankings. It’s still an imposed role, invisible social threads to follow through the Minotaur’s maze of high school, and no straying from the path lest he stumble and lose himself.

 

He can’t really talk to the nerds- not so much because he’d get shit for it, though he would, because his friends already think of him as weird in an acceptable sort of way, but because the nerds wouldn’t want to talk to him, too wary of the connotations. He gets it- living at the top of the school’s ecosystem comes with its obligatory victims, and Jason and Clark can push a little too hard, laugh a little too loudly. People indulge Grizz more, because he comes across instinctively different from the others, but that doesn’t mean they don’t see him and think _jock_ with all of the suspicion of the long-failed American dream. This means his only options are people who either don’t give a fuck about the potential dangers or are secure enough in their own standing that he poses no threat to them, and that’s only a handful of people. Cassandra, but Grizz had never thought it wise to try and befriend her when he hang out with Harry on the regular, not bothered to deal with the inevitable drama. Allie, maybe, but she’d been too young for him to think of.

 

Harry himself isn’t stupid, but fuck if Grizz ever wanted to be close to Harry. The guy’s not so much a natural genius as a rich asshole who talks like he knows what he’s talking about, anyways.

 

So yeah, Grizz gets drunk as fuck at this facsimile of prom, and knows he’s too far gone because his tongue goes loose, and he may be the talker but he’s not the honest talker, not really. There’s some shit he’s wise enough never to say aloud, and telling the group that he was planning on fucking right off the moment he had that diploma in his hands ranks high up the list.

 

It’s not that he doesn’t love them, but Grizz wants to get out of high school and _leave the state_. He has spent so many years in this town, this town where he knows everyone’s name, everyone’s petty drama, every book in the library. He is sick of Harry’s house parties and the smoking area behind the gym, of the potholes down Main Street, of the spice selection in the grocery store. It’s as though his whole identity is West Ham, and yet he has always felt so _distant_ from it- from it, from his classmates, from New England.

 

He knows there is no shortage of white boys who think they’re something special, hell, their AP Lit reading list is choking on Holden Caulfields and their ilk, all retracing the same tired steps with vigorous conviction. Still, though- he wishes Holden Caulfield would try living in West Ham, see how he liked it. The misery of suburbia. Grizz treads that fine line between taking himself far too seriously and not too seriously at all, but sometimes he swears he’s going insane, stir-crazy, like his heart is in his throat and if he spends one more day in town he’s going to _die_. Like he speaks a language no one else understands, not his parents, not his friends, not his teachers, not anyone in all of New England. Like he could stand on the roof and scream and everyone would blink and say ‘oh, typical Grizz’, nudge and exchange a grin. “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as great and sudden change”, said Mary Shelley, but Grizz thinks no change at all is by far the worse option.

 

Perversely, guiltily, he is sometimes glad for this whole fucked up fiasco. For something to do, something different. It’s straight out of a book, after all- it’s not some kind of game, a weird diversion of the average, like his classmates seem disturbingly convinced it is even now- it’s Lord of the Flies waiting to happen, a bunch of privileged kids teetering unwittingly on the edge of chaos and bloodshed. From the get-go he has silently, intensely, thrown his weight behind the designed voice of reason- Cassandra, Allie, whatever. It’s not that he doesn’t care about them, or about who’s in charge, but that he’s thinking big picture- it doesn’t really _matter_ who’s leading so long as they can maintain the facade of normalcy, distract the populace from the sheer terror and animal instinct looming over them.

 

He is happy to play counsel, Guardsman, jury, so long as everyone remains happily oblivious to the fact this is never going to be some wacky experience they can recount once things go back to normal. They are not going back to _normal_ , no matter if they ever go _back_. Most likely he thinks they will last a year or so, if they find farmland, but no longer, because the existential dread and the pressure of being all that remains of human civilisation will not be borne so easily. He will probably not survive far beyond the end of all that, he has decided. Not because he will succumb to illness or fighting, he thinks- he is a survivor if nothing else, adaptable, useful; he will get handed a good card as things go awry, and those in power have use for him. Unfortunately, he’s got that whole morality thing going, and cynically he knows it will cost him- he couldn’t shoot, when it came down to it, and that says it all. If he could not shoot then he will not be able to sit idly by later.

 

It will be a very pointless death, he is sure. Sometimes he is tempted to just leave early, with his garden and his library, like he’d said. Survive. Leave society to its own demise.

 

And yet, and yet. All of this, and still not able to get out of fucking West Ham. All of this, and the top dogs are the same people who ruled the high school halls. All of this and Grizz is still hanging out with the same people, who are still doing the same shit, and now there’s no fucking university to go to. Keats, he thinks: “Were I under water, I would scarcely kick to come to the top”.

 

He’s not a brave person, not really. But if he just stays stagnant he will lose his mind, and he cannot get through this if he continues to speak into the void, and Luke had spoken about Helena _seeing_ him and Grizz had wanted to _cry_. So he drinks himself silly and crashes down into a chair next to Sam Eliot and ignores how his palms sweat and his heart pounds off-beat. It’s almost funny, isn’t it, that he has coasted unfazed through the torments of adolescence, remains supremely unafraid of most everything in their little fucked up society, but feels like he’s about to keel over when Sam fucking Eliot looks at him with equal parts caution and curiosity.

 

Sam Eliot is smart, too, not quite a nerd but removed from the major social spheres of their school. Unlike his friends, Grizz knows most things that go on in West Ham High, and the names and faces of his classmates; he knows Sam hangs out with that Becca girl, avoids Campbell like the plague, and is for the most part wholly unconcerned with the workings of their school.

 

He’s also gay, a known fact. Campbell is a psycho, Harry is a dick, Jason is dumb as a brick, and Sam is gay. It’s just one of those things everyone knows without remembering the how or why. He doesn’t remember there ever being a coming out- just a lack of denial, at some point. Campbell signing a word over and over for weeks afterwards.

 

Sam has the gentlest eyes in the world, maybe deceptively so, long lashes and freckles and fingers always in motion, and since fucking middle school, primary even, Grizz has always thought, secretly, guiltily, that of all the people in town, surely Sam Eliot would be the one to understand Grizz’ need to be _understood_. Has watched him and Becca exchange grins and eyerolls without making a sound, fingers fluttering away, and thought half-jealously that at least Sam’s language was real, had a name, was spoken by someone other than himself. Grizz’ language is unspoken and unspeakable.

 

Grizz doesn’t remember since when he’s been watching Sam, but he knows it has been _years_. When he was young he wasn’t so good at hiding it. Becca had marched up to him once, all long braids and righteous fourteen year old indignation, told him plainly to leave Sam alone or face the consequences. Thinking back it had been a commendable move on her part- he thinks he’d been vaguely impressed even at the time. Threatening one of the popular athletes, like she didn’t care, like Grizz couldn’t have leaned back in his chair and whispered to Clark or Harry that Becca was a frigid bitch and ruined her life in the process.

 

Grizz wouldn’t have done that, obviously. But Becca didn’t _know_ that, evidently, probably _expected_ it.

 

He stopped being so obvious, but he has never quite been able to stop watching all-together. He has known for _years_ that tap-dancing hadn’t really been the issue for his parents, and that sticking him into the football team had not fixed the problem, but he’s never been able to confront the thought. University, the mantra had gone. _Just wait until university_. Then when his old friends all cast him aside it wouldn’t hurt so much, and he could stomach that burning, nauseating anxiety of his parents’ reaction.

 

He has slipped up, over the years, and every time it has been just as bad, just a minute little glimpse of the potential future disastrous, his mother fingering her pearls and his father’s clenched jaw. They are all very good at communicating without speaking.

 

Here he is, at the end of the world, no parents in sight, and so when Sam Eliot looks at him like he expects him to be an asshole but is willing to hear him out anyways, Grizz shouts some inane friendly bullshit at him and hopes fervently he will stay put. Victor Hugo, this time: “the blinder love is, the more tenacious it is”.

 

They exchange a handful of words; Grizz can’t speak to him, not properly, and yet some part of him holds its breath and thinks _he gets it, he gets it, he gets it_.

 

It’s almost like speaking the same language. He chases the feeling, tripping over himself, corners Sam in the library, seeks him out for blatantly flimsy excuses, asks him to come _gardening_ with him like that’s an appealing activity.

 

Sam agrees, every time, indulges Grizz’ transparent neediness for some ungodly reason. He treats this like it’s all par of the course, like Grizz has been hanging out with him since middle school, slips easily into conversation with a sort of calm friendliness that Grizz can only hope to imitate.

 

As is soon evident, his stalking has failed to tell him much about Sam. He already knew Sam was _attractive_ , he has _eyes_ , but he is also impossibly pleasant company. His good humour is unshakeable- Grizz is unsure if it’s possible for his smile to slip. It’s not the fake sort of smile that Gwen will throw out to get him to shut up, or the sleazy grin Harry slaps on to get out of trouble- it’s wry, like he is fully aware that whatever is going on is bullshit but he doesn’t care, refuses to let it get to him. Grizz is alarmingly engrossed, has to ramble to catch up to himself when he stays silent a little too long just staring and wondering.

 

Shit, but he’s bad at this. Grizz is a people person in his way, hermit only within the confines of his own mind, good at talking and better at listening, but if any of his friends had the mental capacity to consider he swung that way, it would be painfully obvious to even them that he is coming on _strong_. Maybe he’s only ever been good at flirting with girls because he had no real skin in the game. Now he definitely has skin in the game and all he can do is fall over himself and hope Sam doesn’t notice too much.

 

He pores over books to fix the language barrier. He knows Sam can read lips, but Grizz wants to read him, too, wants to know what’s going on behind the smile and the knowing eyes. He doesn’t know if Sam looks at everyone like that, like he knows very well what they’re saying even if they’re not saying anything. He doesn’t know if it’d be better or worse if he did. Never has the lack of Internet cost him so dearly.

 

They talk every day. Grizz goes through all of his daily duties with his mind only half on the task at hand, zones in only vaguely to the usual banter of the Guard, tunes in to the various political tensions of West Ham only long enough to ensure nothing goes disastrously awry. “You know that you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams”, Dr. Seuss had said, and Grizz _gets_ that, now, because his whole day turns around welcome trepidation.

 

He has no idea what Sam thinks of him, is the thing. For all he knows he’s only tolerating him because he’s wary of being lynched by the Guard if he sets him off. He can’t ask any of his friends for advice, because it’s not the same as when Clark was still on the pull, or even when Luke is nervously asking for advice with Helena, always painfully in love. He wouldn’t even if he could, he suspects, because it feels blasphemous- this is his to protect, to keep away from the hungry eyes of the public. They have no friends in common that haven’t simply been forced together for convenience’s sake; Becca doesn’t like him. And Grizz can’t get a read on Sam when they’re together, too busy trying not to show how much he wants him to understand.

 

All he has is this gut feeling of being known, and a naive, instinctive trust in the soft hazel of Sam’s eyes.

 

His mind trips over Neruda’s sonnets, can’t settle on one. _I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul_. _I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps._ Love is the word that haunts his thoughts.

 

Grizz has always been a jumble of coexisting contradictions; he’s at peace with this much of himself, at least. He is rough around the edges, soft at the core; he enjoys the brute physicality of football and he cries over poetry. As a child he had curiously experimented on bugs and felt such subsequent shame that he’d tried to starve himself for a week for penance. He is harsh with his retorts and gentle in his reproaches, willing to teach but able to punish. With Sam, though, he feels as though his balance is off-kilter, like his words spill out without their usual ebb and flow and his composure cracks open. He wants to lay down his nicest words at his feet but cannot shake the fear they will not suffice.

 

They sit in Sam’s bedroom, on a bed that feels built for a kid, and Grizz feels big and bulky and out of place, grounded only by their companionable conversation. He is unpardonably honest with Sam, asks questions like they’re intimately close instead of two near-strangers made friends only through his persistent efforts over the last six months. It should be awful, wrung out, but he feels more himself than he has in _years_ , listening to Sam easily navigate these troubled waters.

 

He still can’t quite focus on their conversation. It’s Thanksgiving, or some approximation of it, and the whole damn town is off celebrating, and his friends have been blowing up his phone, and surely Becca is wondering where Sam has gotten to, but here they are, sitting on a bed either too close or too far apart, pretending this is normal. Surely, Grizz thinks, Sam _knows_ , surely Sam has known from the first time, because why else would he be sitting here indulging in Grizz’ never-ending curiosity rather than at the feast with everyone else. He should probably be hungry, but he can’t bring himself to think of food. _I hunger for your mouth, for your voice, for your hair._

 

_I still dream with sound_ , Sam says, which is so strangely poetic that Grizz itches to write it down, enthralled by the elusive. _But only old sounds._

 

He asks what new sounds are, and Sam says his own voice. That’s _actual_ poetry- Grizz wants to say _me too_ , over-eager, because that’s exactly _it_ , isn’t it, that’s all he ever longs after, to find his voice.

 

_I guess it’s deeper now,_ Sam signs, eyes sparkling wryly, and Grizz stops to reconsider. So finding his voice isn’t _all_ he longs after.

 

_I wish I could hear yours_ , Sam says, voice quiet, half smiling, and fuck, Grizz has to be brave now or else never, because that’s all the open invitation he can hope for. If they speak the same language he knows what is being said. If not- he doesn’t know what he’ll do with himself.

 

He swallows down word after word, chasing the ineffable. His usual repertoire of song lyrics and distant quotations is failing him.

 

“Can you teach me one more phrase in sign language?” Grizz hears himself ask, quiet, eyes firmly downcast because he doesn’t think he’ll have the guts to go on if he looks up. _Your eyes are full of language_. He knows without looking that Sam nods, can’t guess at his expression, mind buzzing with static nerves.

 

“How do you,” Grizz says, heartbeat like a baseline and lips chewed raw, thinking _please god understand me_ , “Say ‘kiss me’?”

 

It’s not so much a question as a silent prayer. And he can’t look, because this end of days has made him brave but not enough to drop his defences entirely, not so far down the line, but he hears Sam shift and for one apocalyptic second he is sure he’s leaving. He instinctively moves his head up, and then there are lips on his, warm and sure, and Grizz feels so relieved he’s sick with it, closes his eyes and takes shuddery, sweet breaths as Sam kisses him soundly.

 

Between the two of them Grizz is the firm one, he knows, equal parts sharp and coarse to Sam’s soft. And yet here, between them, he melts helplessly, hands clenching aimlessly in his lap as Sam steers them back, and his chest feels tight and hot like his knees would give out if he stood. He is uncharacteristically in pieces, casual confidence _gone_ , but he doesn’t _care_ , not so long as Sam keeps kissing him. Calloused fingers are caging him in on either side, and he doesn’t feel trapped, for the first time in fucking _forever_ , feels deliciously and embarrassingly safe, free.

 

Sam draws back just a little, eyes scanning his face carefully, and maybe he’s a little anxious that he’s read this situation right, but if he is it doesn’t show, because his expression is still gently knowing, though his eyes are lit up like Grizz has never seen them. Grizz himself can’t quite muster a reaction, just sits there feeling wide-eyed and flushed.

 

Maybe someone should say something, but then Grizz had asked the wrong question and gotten the right answer, so words might be a waste of time.

 

Sam lets go of his face, touches his hands together, brings them back up to his own face, says _That’s how_. Grizz blinks dumbly, then his apparently not so fucking smart brain kicks back into gear and he goes _oh_ , repeats the gesture hesitantly.

 

“Good job,” Sam says, lips quirking up as he signs.

 

“No,” Grizz says, hoarsely, and repeats the gesture. _Kiss me_. 

Oh, Sam’s expression says, and then he’s on him again, and this time Grizz’ hands fly up to yank him closer, and he thinks _fuck_ , incoherently.

 

He needs new words to describe this. His own won’t do.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me about grizz and sam x


End file.
